Mapping spiral structure on the far side of the Milky Way

• Autores: Alberto Sanna, Mark J. Reid, Thomas M. Dame
• Localización: Science, ISSN 0036-8075, Vol. 358, Nº 6360, 2017, págs. 227-230
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.1126/science.aan5452
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Little is known about the portion of the Milky Way lying beyond the Galactic center at distances of more than 9 kiloparsec from the Sun. These regions are opaque at optical wavelengths because of absorption by interstellar dust, and distances are very large and hard to measure. We report a direct trigonometric parallax distance of Embedded Image kiloparsec obtained with the Very Long Baseline Array to a water maser source in a region of active star formation. These measurements allow us to shed light on Galactic spiral structure by locating the Scutum-Centaurus spiral arm as it passes through the far side of the Milky Way and to validate a kinematic method for determining distances in this region on the basis of transverse motions.